Cardinal George Pell in Melbourne, Australia, September 29, 2020. -

AFP

Australian Cardinal George Pell is due to leave for Rome on Tuesday for a “private trip”.

A first for a long time for the former Secretary of the Economy of Pope Francis, who had been convicted and then acquitted in Australia in a case of pedophilia.

He has not been there since leaving Australia in the summer of 2017. "He always said he would return to Rome at some point," Katrina Lee, adviser to the Catholic Archdiocese, told AFP of Sydney and friend of the cardinal.

Asked if she knew the purpose of this trip, she replied, “Not completely, but if I did, I wouldn't be free to say it.

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Financial arrangements at the heart of a vast investigation

The return of Cardinal Pell to Rome, which will have all the flavor of a revenge, will come a week after the Pope dismissed one of the Vatican's most influential cardinals, the Italian Angelo Becciu.

He was forced to resign Thursday by Pope Francis, who received him for about twenty minutes to tell him that he was suspected of “embezzlement” by investigators.

The name of Angelo Becciu has been mentioned many times in the context of an explosive investigation, launched a year ago, into opaque financial arrangements to buy a building in the chic Chelsea district of London.

The purchase procedure had started in 2014 when Bishop Becciu was still at the Secretariat of State, the central administration of the Holy See deciding for this investment.

Pell and Becciu in conflict

“The Holy Father chose to clean up the Vatican finances.

He has a long-term strategy and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments, ”Cardinal Pell wrote in a statement sent to the US Catholic News Agency on Friday.

Known for his grip and his knowledge of economic affairs, Cardinal Pell was appointed in 2014 by Pope Francis to head an unprecedented Secretariat of the Economy, responsible for controlling Vatican finances and spending in the various administrations of the Holy -Seat.

“In the months leading up to his departure (for Australia), George Pell was in conflict with Angelo Becciu.

The bottom line was that they had two different visions of how the Denarius of Saint Peter should be managed, ”explained Franca Giansoldati of the daily Messagero.

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